hospitals
HOLYNAME MEDICAL CENTER
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High-tech innovations at hospitals are often heralded as life-savers, but it’ s the low-tech practice ofthorough handwashing that is key to practicing medicine safely, experts say.
“ Our staff may wash their hands as often as 100 times during the work day,” says Dr. Suraj Saggar, Chief of Infectious Disease at Holy Name Medical Center.“ Washing with soap and water removes germs and is one of the most effective ways toprevent the spread of disease.”
To support best practices in hand hygiene, Holy Name has installed washing stations from Soapy USA, Inc. One is located in one of the patient units, while asecond is being placed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit( NICU). Another will move throughout the hospital to help train staff across departments.
Soapy machines look like conventional automated hand washing stations available in public restrooms. But placing ahand inside them launches astep-by-step animated video that spells out the World Health Organization’ s guidelines on hand-washing technique for healthcare professionals. The machine dispenses the exact amount of pre-heated water and soap needed to lather and rinse; the programmed amount of time for the lathering and rinsing steps are 20seconds each. The machine uses gesture recognition technology to analyze and rate how successful each scrub is, and offers pointers on how to do better.
Holy Name discovered Soapy through its collaboration with the ARC Center( Accelerate, Redesign, Collaborate) for Digital Innovation at Sheba Medical Center inIsrael, part of alarger effort to advance cutting-edge health technologies and solutions. The ARC Center brings together physicians, researchers, startups, industry leaders, academia, investors and medical centers to improve patient care.
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